Reflection, Reafon, ftill the ties improve,
At once extend the intereft, and the love:
With choice we fix, with fympathy we burn;
Each Virtue in each Paffion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rofe,
Thife natural love maintain'd, habitual those :
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Memory and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd,
Still Spread the intereft, and preferve the kind.
IV. Nor think, in NATURE'S STATE they blindly trod; The State of Nature was the reign of God:
Self-love and Social at her birth began,
Union the bond of all things, and of Man.
Pride then was not; nor Arts, that Pride to aid;
Man walk'd with beaft, joint tenant of the shade;
The fame his table, and the fame his bed;
No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.
In the fame temple, the refounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The fhrine with gore unftain'd, with gold undrefs'd,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood the blameless priest:
Heaven's Attribute was Univerfal Care,
And man's prerogative, to rule, but spare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;
Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
But just disease to luxury fucceeds,
And every death its own avenger breeds;
The Fury-paffions from that blood began,
And turn'd on Man, a fiercer savage, Man.
See him from Nature rifing flow to Art!
Το copy
inftinct then was reafon's part;
Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake-
"Go, from the Creatures thy instructions take: "Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; "Learn from the beasts the phyfic of the field; "Thy arts of building from the bee receive; "Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave; "Learn of the little Nautilus to fail,
"Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. "Here too all forms of focial union find,
"And hence let Reason, late, inftru&t Mankind: 180 "Here fubterranean works and cities fee;
"There towns aërial on the waving tree.
"Learn each small People's genius, policies,
"The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees;
"How those in common all their wealth beftow, 185
"And Anarchy without confufion know;
"And these for ever, though a Monarch reign,
"Their separate cells and properties maintain.
"Mark what unvary'd laws preferve each state,
"Laws wife as Nature, and as fix'd as Fate.
"In vain thy Reason finer webs shall draw,
"Entangle Juftice in her net of Law,
"And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;
"Still for the ftrong too weak, the weak too ftrong,
"Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures fway,
"Thus let the wifer make the rest obey:
"And for those Arts mere Instinct could afford,
"Be crown'd as. Monarchs, or as Gods ador'd."
V. Great Nature spoke; obfervant Man obey'd;
Cities were built, Societies were made:
Here rofe one little ftate; another near
Grew by like means, and join'd, through love or fear.
Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend,
And there the ftreams in purer rills defcend?
What War could ravish, Commerce could beftow; 205
And he return'd a friend, who came a foe.
Converfe and Love mankind might frongly draw,
When Love was Liberty, and Nature Law.
Ver. 197. in the first Editions,
Who for thofe Arts they learn'd of brutes before,
As Kings fhall crown them, or as Gods adore.
Ver. 201. Here rofe one little state, &c.] In the MS. thus,
The neighbours leagu'd to guard their common spot;
And Love was Nature's dictate; Murder, not.
For want alone each animal contends;
Tigers with Tigers, that remov'd are friends.
Plain Nature's wants the common mother crown'd,
She pour'd her acorns, herbs, and ftreams around.
No Treafure then for rapine to invade,
What need to fight for fun-fhine or for fhade?
And half the caufe of conteft was remov'd,
When beauty could be kind to all who lov'd.
Thus States were form'd; the name of King unknown,
Till common intereft plac'd the sway in one.
'Twas VIRTUE ONLY (or in arts or arms,
Diffufing bleffings, or averting harms)
The fame which in a fire the Sons obey'd,
A Prince the Father of a People made.
VI. Till then, by Nature crown'd, each Patriarch fate,
King, prieft, and parent, of his growing state:
On him, their second Providence, they hung,
Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue.
He from the wondering furrow call'd the food,
Taught to command the fire, control the flood,
Draw forth the monsters of th' abyss profound,
Or fetch th' aërial eagle to the ground.
Till drooping, fickening, dying, they began
Whom they rever'd as God to mourn as Man:
Then, looking up from fire to fire, explor'd
One great First Father, and that firft ador'd.
Or plain tradition that this All begun,
Convey'd unbroken faith from fire to fon;
The worker from the work diftin&t was known,
And fimple Reafon never fought but one:
Ere Wit oblique had broke that steddy light,
Man, like his Maker, faw that all was right;
To Virtue, in the paths of Pleasure trod,
And own'd a Father when he own'd a God.
LOVE all the faith, and all th' allegiance then;
For Nature knew no right divine in Men,
No ill could fear in God; and understood
A fovereign being, but a fovereign good.
True faith, true policy, united ran,
That was but love of God, and this of Man.
Who first taught fouls enflav'd, and realms undone.
Th' enormous faith of many made for one;
That proud exception to all Nature's laws,
T'invert the world, and counter-work its Cause? Force firft made Conquest, and that conqueft, Law; Till Superftition taught the tyrant awe,
Then fhar'd the Tyranny, then lent it aid,
And Gods of Conquerors, Slaves of Subjects made: She 'midft the lightning's blaze, and thunder's found, When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground,
She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,
To Power unfeen, and mightier far than they :
She, from the rending earth, and bursting skies,
Saw Gods defcend, and fiends infernal rife:
Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bleft abodes;
Fear made her Devils, and weak Hope her Gods;
Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjust,
Whofe attributes were Rage, Revenge, or Luft;
Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive,
And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe. 260
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide;
And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride.
Then facred feem'd th' ethereal vault no more;
Altars grew Marble then, and reek'd with gore:
Then firft the Flamen tafted living food;
Next his grim idol fmear'd with human blood;
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